Hatshepsut Found!

Two posts ago, I started telling you about one of my favorite Royal Ladies; Queen Hatshepsut. A little over a year ago, in June of 2007, Hatshepsut's mummy was finally identified. She had been found in a mummy cache in a Valley of the King's tomb, KV60.

The cache was series of secret tombs in which agents of the High Priests of Amun, who controlled the Theban area during the 21st and 22nd Dynasties, hid the bodies of many of the kings and queens of the 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties. They may have stripped both the mummies and the royal tombs of most of their valuables; they also acted piously, to protect the royal remains from the tomb robbers, which were rampant, even in antiquity.

When the mummies from that tomb were brought up, the mummy we now know as Hatshepsut was mostly ignored, for one very simple reason—she was fat.

However, what they did have were Hatshepsut's canopic jars, and a wooden canopic box bearing her cartouches. The box was the real treasure—inside was Hatshepsut's mummified liver and a single tooth.

The tooth fit into the head of the heavy woman with millimeters to spare, so she was indeed the long missing queen.

Subsequent DNA tests have proved it conclusively, we indeed have Hatshepsut's mummy.

From the information that we have about her, Hatshepsut's last few years weren't very comfortable.

" . . . Bald in front but with long hair in back, the mummy of Hatshepsut shows an obese woman just over 5 feet tall, with rotten teeth . . .[the]examination of the mummy's mouth and her missing molar. . .revealed very poor dental hygiene."

"Her mouth shows the presence of many dental cavities, periapical (root) inflammation and pockets," Ashraf Selim, the radiologist at Cairo University who examined the mummy, told Discovery News.

Obesity and poor oral hygiene suggested to Selim and colleagues that she might have suffered from diabetes.

But, Selim said, "Surely this is just a theory based on this circumstantial evidence, which we cannot confirm."

One thing, however, is certain: Hatshepsut had cancer, cancer that had metastasized.

"The type of cancer we discovered is affecting the pelvic bone, specifically the left iliac bone. From its location, character and the few tiny foci of bone rarefaction in the spine, we concluded that this tumor is a metastatic deposit rather than a primary tumor," Selim said.

Though bone cancer could not be totally ruled out, Selim said he believed it was more likely that another kind of tumor spread to the bone.

"It could have been a tumor affecting the lung, breast or kidney," Selim said.

Whatever the tumor's origins, it is very likely that Queen Hatshepsut spent her last days in pain.

"A bone tumor is certainly painful. The picture emerging from the mummy is not only unflattering, but would indicate rather poor health. But with the data at our disposal, I think any diagnosis is merely speculative," Gino Fornaciari, professor of forensic anthropology at the University of Pisa, told Discovery News."

From Discovery News

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I am glad that the theories that her step-son/nephew Thutmoses III killed her can be laid to rest, but it does seem like a sad ending for such a forward looking woman. But, despite all Thutmoses III's careful planning, Hatshesput's name will not be forgotten and she will live forever.

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The embedding has been disabled, but this is an interesting interview with Dr. Hawass on the finding of Hatshepsut. It is 6 minutes long. The Lost Queen of Egypt Interview

Great Royal Lady

Who are the Great Queens of the world?

Catherine the Great maybe?

What about Cleopatra?

Or Queen Victoria?

Queen Elizabeth I perhaps?

If you said 'yes' to any of these ladies, you would be absolutely right. But there would still be one name missing from your list: the Horus, mighty by his Kas, the lord of East and West abounding in years, the good goddess, the pious lady, the golden falcon, divine in her rings, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kamara, the daughter of Ra, Khnumit Amon, Hatshepsut.

This 18th Destiny Egyptian Queen was the daughter of Thuthmose I (1506 - 1493 BC) and Queen Ahmose. Her elder brother, Wadjmose, died before his father, so when Tuthmose I died, Hatshepsut married her younger half-brother/cousin, Tuthmose II. The reason for this was because the kingship was bestowed through the female line though no female could be pharaoh.

Tuthmose II (1492-1479 BC) was a weak man, physically and possibly mentally, which may be a result of too much inbreeding. May Egyptologists believe Hatshepsut was the true power behind his throne. Together, they had at least one child, a daughter named Neferure, and Tuthmose II had a son with a concubine. That boy was engaged to Neferure, and would one day become Tuthmose III.

When Tuthmose II died, his young son became Tuthmose III. The boy was far too young to rule on his own, so his step-mother/aunt, Hatshepsut stepped in as regent. After two years of pretending joint rule, Hatshepsut sent the boy away to a temple to study for the priesthood and put herself on the throne. Her reign brought 20 years of peace to Egypt.

Now free of that pretense, Hashepsut hired a scholar named Senmut to teach her daughter, and competently administered the affairs of state. Most importantly, she had the backing of the high priests. Without it, they could have destroyed her in an instant.

Hatshepsut' s rule is often looked at negatively or reduced to a few lines in older Egyptology books because she chose to expand Egypt's bordered without fighting anyone.

On an expadition to Punt, a country in Black Africa, though no-one is sure exactly where Punt is, many goods were brought back. Included in that list was an incense known as antyu, ivory, and ebony. There were also animal skins; giraffes, panthers and cheetahs which were worn by temple priests, and enough live animals to start a small zoo.

Hatshepsut built her morturary temple at Deir el-Bahri, though she was never buried there.

Then, Hatshepsut's reign abruptly ends and Tuthmose III comes back to the throne. The first thing he does is hop in a chariot and head off to start a war. During his reign, he captured over 350 cities and is some times called the Napoleon of his day.

Near the end of his bloody reign, in order to legitimize the succession of his son by a lesser wife, Tuthmose III went on a campaign to remove all traces of Hatshepsut. He took her name out of the Pheronic records, broke or removed the faces of her statues and chizled her name off of the buildings and temples.

In Ancient Egyptian culture, if someone remembered your name, you truely lived for ever. Your soul would die permanently if your name was forgotten, and he wanted her gone.

NEXT: HATSHEPSUT FOUND!

Linguistics

I heard a rather amusing quote once: English doesn’t borrow words from other languages. English follows them into dark alleys, knocks them out and rummages through their pockets, looking for loose grammar.

I am not certain how that pertains to archaeology or Egyptology, but I found it rather fun. It is true, though. In a few thousand years when we’re not here anymore and the archaeologists of the future start sifting through the refuse of our lives, what will they say when they see all the writings we will have left behind?

I am supposing, of course, that at least a few of our stone monuments will have survived, and someone will attempt to read them, as the French did when Neapolitan took his troops into Egypt.

Our language conforms to no true laws since technically it consists of the grammar, syntax, and bastardized pronunciations of dozens of other languages—including but not limited to German, Latin, Spanish, French, Welsh, Old German, Old Norse, Norman French, Danish, and probably several other Scandinavian languages.

Linguistic archaeologists and anthropologists must love English. Words fall in and out of favour quickly and often. For instance, when was the last time you heard someone say “verily,” and they were not practicing for a Shakespearean play? Here’s another fun word I heard recently and had to look up; taciturn. It is an adjective that means “to be silent by nature; habitually uncommunicative in speech or manners.”

It still shows up in my 1928 ed. of the Winston Simplified Dictionary, so we know that at least 70 years ago, someone knew what it meant. But when I look it up online, it is listed as archaic. What makes the word doubly interesting is that it comes from French, from Latin. There we are, grammar rummaging again.

Did you know that a “husband” or hus-bondi was actually and Anglo-Saxon word from Scandinavian that meant “a person bound to a household; an agricultural land worker, or property holder?” It’s true; his companion was a “hussy,” which, until the Renaissance meant “a household bound woman, hus-wife.”

Neither of these words had anything to do with marriage. From Medieval Wordbook ,by Madeleine Pelner Cosman, copyright, 1996. 2007 Barnes & Noble, Inc. Ed.

I know that it seems as if I am rambling a bit, but after opening with the above quote, I must end with an excerpt from an amusing essay entitled WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS SUCH A JOY TO LEARN!

“ . . . We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? . . .”


What indeed?

Archaeology

When most people think about archaeology, the first thing that comes to mind is Indiana Jones being chased through the Temple of Doom by a giant boulder. It would be nice if it were that interesting, but frankly, I'd rather not be crushed.

Instead, I prefer getting dirty; carefully digging a tiny square hole, lifting the dirt out to be sifted one layer at a time and cataloguing every interesting thing I find (if any) until . . . the summer's over, I have found nothing! Then, it's time to cover up the whole kit and hope you can come back next year to do it again!

I know that sounds dull to some people, but every rock, potsherd, nail, and unidentifiable 'what the heck is that?'may one day be the key to understanding a lost culture, people, civilization, or cracking an unreadable language.

And I could be a part of that. How exciting.